Unexpected
by Mistress Ashley
Summary: A TtH FFA response - Johnny has an unexpected encounter which results in an unexpected vision.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything. Johnny and all Dead Zone characters and Connor and all Angel characters belong to their respective creators.

**AN:** I've only watched a few episodes of Dead Zone, wonderful show but I'm not very knowledgeable about it yet, so I'm not too terribly certain if the visions could happen like this. If not, sorry just pretend they can.

I check the FFA on Twisting the Hellmouth every once in a while, if I keep writing my muse tends to stick around longer. This one isn't great but when inspiration hits you have to go with or the muse gets mad. This one is for the FFA Johnny/Connor.

**SPOILERS:** Really nothing specific for the Dead Zone but for Angel from 'Lullaby' to 'Home' I believe. Some things were taken directly from the episodes.

_If you squint at the end it could be leading toward Johnny/Sarah/Walt. If it's not your thing, don't squint. XD_

I'll probably go back later and trim off/rewrite some of the excess of Connor's life, I just didn't want to miss any turning points so Johnny could understand and I wanted to gradually show the changes happening inside Johnny so you could see Connor's life could have an overall affect on him.

* * *

Johnny walked down the street, shops on either side of him, people coming and going, enjoying a quiet weekend.

He wandered sometimes what it would be like, to have a quiet life, to go to work and come home to a wife and son. The notion always passed though, Johnny could never have a normal life, not with the visions. He'd never be able to turn away from them if he could help someone, it was better to be a 'freak' and help someone than to ignore the gift, sometimes curse and have someone die when he could have saved them.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts he saw the boy walking with his friends a moment too late. Johnny collided with the boy, stumbling back, instinctively reaching out to catch himself. His hand made contact with the boy's hand that was reaching to steady him. He felt the world spin.

The sensation of a vision was one he knew all too well. Looking around himself, Johnny found himself in an alley. It was raining and one of the buildings appeared to be on fire. There also seemed to be people crouched in the middle of the alley. He walked nearer and on closer inspection, there were three, a man and a woman perched over a pregnant woman. She seemed to be in labor and it didn't look as if it was going well.

He listened to some of the conversation; not understanding much of it ... the man had died in an alley? The conversation took a turn as the pregnant woman spoke, "This child - Angel, it's the one good thing we ever did together." It seemed to give her a new resolve, a determination.

"You make sure to tell him that." He jumped back as she seemed to collapse into dust, a naked baby lay wailing in the place where the woman had been. It was like something out of a science fiction movie or the fantasy books he'd read as a child. His visions had never been wrong before but this was something that couldn't be real.

The scene around him swirled once again as the man, the babies father if he understood correctly, scooped the child up in his arms.

----

A double vision didn't happen often, it was somewhat more disorienting, harder to focus on what was going on around him.

He'd once again come in in the middle of what looked to be an all out adventure. There was a man and a woman, different from the previous vision but a glance into the backseat of the car showed a car seat with a child strapped in, he'd bet everything he owned the baby was the same one.

_Kidnapping? _He thought as he heard the man tell the child he was his father and the woman his mother.

They drove off only to have a military vehicle cut them off and another when they tried to turn. He watched as the women tackled the baby's father only to be tossed aside.

He watched with mounting horror as the man holding the child shouted, "Come any closer and I'll snap his neck!"

He watched as the father stopped, as the military men surrounding them cocked their weapons, machine guns if he remembered correctly. They all seemed to want the child, even the new woman; an attorney from the talk around him.

His confusion went up several notches with that bit of info. _What could an attorney want with a child, a baby, to go so far as to threaten to shoot the man and the child if he wasn't handed over?_

The vision turned even weirder as a being appeared out of thin air. The argument continued, this time between the lawyer and the being over whether to kill the child or not.

He wasn't sure he liked this watching thing anymore, as the father wrestled a gun from one of the soldiers and pointed it at the lawyer.

The father and the man seemed to come to an agreement once the man threatened the boy's life again. The father would have the man take it and raise him than see him dead.

Johnny felt his heart clench at that, allowing another man to raise his son. Walt had raised his son when he couldn't and while it was painful - not seeing his son grow, at least he had been loved. He didn't think he'd ever thanked Walt, maybe it was time.

He was jarred from his thoughts by a ... hole, a burning hole, opening in the air. Through it he could see the barren landscape and flashes of lightening from a bright red sky.

Johnny listened as the being explained what he was seeing was Quortoth, the darkest of the dark worlds. It threatened opening the hole further and allowing it to swallow them if they didn't kill the child and when no one moved, Johnny saw the hole widen and grow. He heard the order to kill the child, hoping someone would stop it.

The man and the child disappeared into the hole, the boys father jumping in after them only to be struck back by lightening. He watched the being close the hole and everyone leave.

Johnny finally heard the boy's name, Connor, come from the lips of the devastated father.

----

The next few scenes came almost too fast to follow, scenes played out under a red sky. Johnny was coming to learn there was more to his world than he could ever have imagined.

Johnny watched the boy grow, watched the man raise the boy as he'd promised. He also saw the man slowly taint the boy against his birth father, telling him truths and half-truths. He watched as the man taught the boy to kill the beings of this dark world. The scenes after that showing the boy, Stephen now, at various ages, his skills getting better, the boy growing unnaturally strong, his kills getting bigger and more vicious. He sees the beings, demons he heard though he still doesn't want to believe, fearfully christen the boy with the name, The Destroyer.

One second he's watching the boy, now what appears to be a teenager, in the time it takes to blink he's in what looks to be a hotel lobby. A tear opens in the air and a monster, one he's seen the boy fight before in Quortoth, drops from it snarling. Stephen, or Connor, drops next, killing the monster on his way to the floor.

He watches the boy straighten and point his weapon at his father, "Hi Dad."

----

Johnny feels the pull once more, it's becoming a bit frightening, he's never had this many visions all at once before.

This one seems to go as fast as the last.

It begins where the last seemed to let off, a fight begins, ends, and Stephen runs. Johnny's heart goes out to boy. While the world he'd come from was a hell it was the only one the boy knows. He's lost in this world. The boy journeys through the city, Los Angeles if the signs are correct. Imagining what it would be like for someone who has no idea about cars, skyscrapers, or even people. It'd be loud, crowded, and dangerous. He watches the boy save a girl, experience beef jerky, chocolate snack cakes, and a kiss from said girl who appears to be a drug addict. He then watches the boy find the girl dead of an overdose. He sees Angel take a shotgun blast to the back to save Stephen. He watches as the man, Holtz is reunited with Connor.

The next scenes pass in a blur of healing, anger, and death. The death of Holtz at the hands of the women who stole Connor. The death made to look as though it was Angel who had done it. Revenge carves its place into Stephen's heart. Johnny watches at Angel is buried in a watery grave by his son.

Other smaller scenes pass, Stephen trying to find his place in this world, so different from his own. A friendship develops between Stephen and an amnesiac Cordelia.

Things appear to be on a downward spiral as a new monster appears in the visions. A hulking red beast ironically referred to as The Beast. The sun is eclipsed and with eternal night the world is left vulnerable. A rain of fire, sex between Stephen and Cordelia, Angelus is unleashed, Cordelia pregnant, Angelus Angel again.

It was all going so fast, Johnny's head felt like it might explode. He was only understanding small bits of the whole now.

A moment of insight, everything he's seen so far, from Connor's birth to this pregnancy, it was all some large, convoluted plan by a higher being.

The birth of Jasmine, even in the vision he can feel her power encroaching on him, trying to slither into his mind. Cordelia in a coma and Connor ... Johnny can feel Connor's almost reached his breaking point. His daughter, not his daughter. It'd be hard for anyone but Connor has had such a hard, trying life already, his mind cracking under the strain.

He's sickened at the realization that Jasmine eats people. Johnny's eyes turn away and his heart breaks for the boy who wants love, wants to love his daughter, so badly that he'll turn a blind eye. A lost little boy buried deep inside coming up to peek out of his eyes.

The death of Jasmine at Connor's hand seems to be the final breaking point for the boy. He sees Connor in a sporting goods store, the shoppers bound with bombs, the arrival of Angel, Connor's statement that he feels dead inside and that death is his only way out. He watches as Connor's hand goes to press the button to set off the bombs, the fight, and the release of the hostages.

Johnny closes his eyes, tears trailing down his cheeks as he sees the death of Connor.

Johnny's eyes open to the rebirth of Connor with a normal family, a normal life, a girlfriend, and college.

----

Johnny felt the pull and the scenes flash by much too fast to understand, yet still he knows, everything will be okay for Connor. There were hard times ahead but everything would work out.

----

Johnny gives a small gasp as he's forced back into his body, his hand still held in Connor's. Connor's face held a look of concern.

"You alright? You just completely zoned out."

Johnny nods his head, still blinking to orient himself. "I'm ... I'm fine. Got caught up in my thoughts, wasn't watching were I was going. I'm sorry about that." Excuses, he's got millions of them for those not in the know about his visions. It's not like he could say _'no, I just had a vision, I saw your whole life but it's one you don't know. It's impossible to believe, something out of a fantasy novel but my visions are never wrong._'

Connor still looked concerned and there was a hint of confusion but his friends were calling so he nodded, "Right, I got to go. Sorry." He was moving around Johnny, rejoining his friends.

Johnny thought of calling after him, telling him everything, but it was better this way. The boy, Connor, would find out on his own - when the time was right. Until then, he'd allow him some of the childish innocence he'd been deprived of in his other life.

With a sigh, Johnny pushed thoughts of demons, other worlds, the origins of his visions, and children with lost childhoods from his mind and continued on his way. He didn't want to miss his flight home. Especially now, he had a Sheriff to thank after all.

----

**Somewhere in the Higher Realms**

"He's stepped onto the path of letting go of his jealousy and bitterness," echoed through the vast emptiness of the white 'room'.

"Will it alter anything?" A different voice questioned the first.

"It will change everything." If the being had had a body it would be smiling.

"Will he be alright?" The second voice seemed concerned.

A laugh sounded, echoing. "He will be well taken care of. With his heart free of the dark feelings he will let them in and they will look after him."

"It will be a better future?"

"For all of them."


End file.
